


Three Wheels

by spiced_1990



Category: Spice Girls
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26019685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiced_1990/pseuds/spiced_1990
Summary: On the outside looking in. Christian POV.
Relationships: Geri Halliwell/Christian Horner, Melanie Brown/Geri Halliwell
Kudos: 15





	Three Wheels

He knew her before he met her, through the stories his girlfriend told but also through the ones she didn’t. It wasn’t his world nor was Geri even his type, but that was what really had appealed, finding someone so different, someone who liked to push the boundaries of what he’d always been told was acceptable, who made his stomach clench and turn and fizz. He knew what she got from the relationship too because she’d endearingly told him so from the first, that she craved some of that strength and calm that he apparently represented. Bullshit, maybe, but enough to turn his head. 

And so he learned to grow used to her habit of interrupting and talking over him, her insistence on breaking up the monotony of his decor with big, brash reminders of her past, the way she was simultaneously insanely confident and bossy but so insecure that he felt like he had a permanent job in reassuring her that she was worthy of love and praise. 

The first time he’d heard her voice, Geri had been laying beside him in bed, picking at her breakfast and talking on the phone. “I don’t know why you’re making this a fight when it’s not,” his girlfriend had insisted, an underlying note of frustration in her voice. “I just wanted to say hi to my best friend and then you go and - ”

He’d turned to his back, curling an arm around Geri’s waist and pulling her closer. She was probably the most tactile partner he’d ever had, always searching for kisses and cuddles like she was starved for affection.

“Oh fuck off, Melanie. You know exactly what you’re doing and I’ve already told you - Yes, he’s here.”

His girlfriend had let out a sigh loaded with all sorts of emotions he couldn’t quite get a handle on and had passed him her mobile phone. 

“She wants to talk to you. Mel does.”

It wasn’t even a question of which Mel, he’d known that at the time. It was _always_ Melanie Brown and on the rare occasion it wasn’t, Geri made that explicitly clear. And so they’d talked. Or he’d said hello and had, in return, heard her broad accented rant over the line, threats of dismemberment amongst other things. It had been amusing, really, maybe even sweet in a fucked up way, but when he’d tried to charm her into a more congenial conversation, Geri had hidden her face in the pillow, hadn’t warned him that that was the worst possible tack to take.

The phone call had ended with a sarcastic “Hope to meet you soon, Horner. Unless Geri rediscovers her brain and dumps your smug arse first”. Charmed.

It never really changed. When they’d finally met face to face, Christian accompanying Geri to a meeting at a London hotel on the way to one of his own, he’d been struck by a few things but mostly by the closeness between his wife and her former (current?) bandmate. He’d never claim to be well versed in female friendships but he’d also never come across any quite like theirs. The moment Mel had come through the door, looking tall and strong and frankly a little intimidating, Geri had run to her, thrown her arms around her neck, her legs around her waist. They hadn’t let go fully, standing hand in hand (fingers entwined like this was normal and not the first time they’d seen each other in a year), not when Christian had pressed a kiss to Mel’s cheek and said hello, not even when he’d waved goodbye to them in the hotel lobby. 

When he’d returned, everything had been tense, neither making eye contact with him or with each other. He’d asked, of course he had, expecting an answer because Geri rarely needed prompting to talk, let alone pushing. “Things are… It’s complicated,” she’d said, her hands restless in her lap as they drove back home. “Always have been. Except when it was simple.” He’d swallowed his frustration with how cryptic she sometimes felt the need to be, trying to remind himself that articulation didn’t always come easily. It wasn’t as if he _needed_ more, but being blocked out of what was clearly such a big part of why Geri was the way she was… It was new and he didn’t like it. 

He learnt what closed doors meant, that actually she needed time alone as much as he did, especially when she was talking to certain people. Mostly Mel. She never _hid_ those conversations from him, not exactly, but he wouldn’t lie and ignore the fact that he suspected that if she could, she would. Sometimes he’d catch a few sentences here or there, words or tone that raised eyebrows, that had him thinking things he shouldn’t about his wife’s past. He didn’t even have any reason to think that maybe - Christian found distractions, in their children and his work and in the genuine affection and heat between them. It was usually enough. 

One day, he’d returned from a trip to Bahrain to find Melanie lounging in their living room, Bluebell tucked against one side and Geri’s head on her lap as they watched old episodes of a show he didn’t even recognise. “Just popped by for a natter,” she’d said, stretching like a goddamned cat as his wife had looked up, wide-eyed, the only thing stopping her from jumping to an upright position, her friend’s fingers tight in her hair. “Hard to get her to shut up these days. Used to be able to, of course,” Mel had continued, a smirk on her face, as if he was meant to know exactly what she meant. Geri had pulled away then, made an uncomfortable, disapproving noise and come to greet him with a kiss. Distracted, almost distant. They’d had sex that night, desperate and needy in a way he hadn’t felt from her in months. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, y’know,” he’d said to her afterwards, her head on his bare chest, her small hands curled tightly on the sheets. She hadn’t responded. He was pretty sure she hadn’t come. 

Three years later, he’d still been uncertain of where he stood. They’d seen a little more of Mel because she’d finally crawled out of the hell that was her marriage and because there were finally plans being put in place for a new Spice Girls tour, and while he couldn’t have said that she was his favourite person in the world, he’d appreciated what it all meant for his wife and their history. Every time there’d been a visit or a phone call and he’d gotten dragged into participating, though, there’d been an unspoken sense of competition that had left him feeling defensive and possessive, two things he generally avoided. The younger woman teased and mocked and pushed in equal measure, and if he’d known Geri any less, he’d be almost afraid for how she’d manage. But even though she’d changed since they'd first met, settled down and into marriage and the life they’d created, he’d known she liked to feel challenged by the daring of her old friend. 

Sometimes daring wasn’t quite the right word. 

“I like babies and animals just as much as you do but you don’t see me looking like some kind of demented angel all the time,” Mel had said one evening over dinner (Geri had fussed all day trying to make sure it was _exactly_ perfect), scorn written all over her face, easily visible even from where Christian sat at the other end of the table. “It’s just weird.”

“Like you’ve never been weird yourself, Brown,” his wife had said defensively, spearing a brussel sprout like it was deserving of a punishment worse than death. “You used to like my weird.” 

Geri had explained the dynamic to him before, of course, had tried to elucidate exactly why they attracted and repelled like magnets, why there was still so much friction so many years after they’d become friends. He’d nodded and made approving noises and the relief on her face had been a balm. 

The night before the news broke, she’d told him, had come to him, her face wan and worried. “We need to talk.” The explanation had been confusing, her words halting. “Mel, she did an interview today and said some things. About me and her.” 

He’d taken her hands in his own, tried to make eye contact. “Hey, you know you can tell me anything.” Christian wasn’t sure how true that really was, had hoped he wouldn’t ever be tested. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad. You haven’t murdered anybody, right?”

Her brow had furrowed and she’d curled in on herself. “It’s not funny, Christian. This isn’t a joke. She wasn’t meant to ever - I can’t believe she - ”

She was so pale that he could almost count her freckles.

“She told Piers Morgan, told everybody, that we slept together.” It came out in a breath of air, the long exhale of a secret long kept. The questions had run through his mind quicker than she offered answers, the when and how and what do you means crashing over him overwhelmingly. The room had shrunk. “Just once, she apparently said,” Geri had choked. “Just once a long, long time ago.” The words spat out like poison. 

“You never told me.”

“It didn’t matter,” Geri had said bitterly. “It doesn’t. I love you. She - She had no right to say it.”

“But it’s true.” Not a question. 

“You _knew_ we were best friends.” 

“Apparently my definition of best friends is slightly different,” he’d say dryly, trying to reconfigure all the things he knew about his wife, about the past he’d been told. The holidays together she’d talked about so fondly, the years of not speaking that had clearly left scars, the endless comparisons to marriages and divorces. Memories. He could see Melanie laughing in their living room, husky and low, burying her head in his partner’s neck, planting little kisses there like she had the right. “So just once.”

She hadn’t answered at first, had run a still shaky hand through her shower-wet hair. “That’s what I said she said,” she said eventually, quietly. “We’d promised it was just for us, that it was private.”

They’d gone to bed early, back to back. 

The next day, Christian had found his wife searching her name online, something she usually avoided. “We’re being laughed at,” she’d admitted, tugging restlessly at her sweater. “I wish I had a thicker skin. What they’re saying is just - Like I’m _straight_ , it wasn’t - Not that that’s bad or anything, but it’s not me, and Mel’s different, she - ” He’d pulled her into a hug, reassured her that he understood. 

He didn’t. 

“It was just Mel.” 

Bluebell had come to find him when the next part of the story broke, her face worried and her hands fidgeting. “I think Mum might need you,” she’d said uncertainly. “She’s really upset. I think it’s the news again.”

They’d sat her daughter down when the initial flurry of headlines occurred, and he’d watched Geri calmly explain what she might hear (you know Auntie Mel…), what it meant (we were very close back then…), what it didn’t (I’m not a lesbian…). 

Sighing, he’d made his way to the home office, finding Geri curled up in a chair, her phone gripped right in her fist. “I want to know who’s talking to these reporters,” she’d told him, her eyes wet but blazing. “These fucking weasals think they know us, what happened, and it’s our life, not theirs. It’s not _theirs_.”

He’d pried her mobile phone from her hands, skimmed the article. A relationship. _Sexual._ One year. At least. _Love._ “Did you lie to me? Even by omission?”

She’d stood up, fists clenched and eyes narrowed. “I’m going to release a statement. They went too far. If Mel had just shut the fuck up in the first place - ”

“Did you think the truth would never come out, darling? _Never_? Life doesn’t work like that, especially when your oldest friends apparently get off on muckraking.”

His words had been met with a slammed door.

By the time the tour began, she was all his mother could have wished for in a daughter-in-law. He hated it almost as much as he appreciated it. The first night he came to see the show (so many tens of thousands of people, worshipful), Geri had been tense on the way there and it wasn’t difficult to ascertain why. 

They’d run into each other outside Geri’s dressing room, him about to leave, Monty riding on his back, and Mel about to enter, gum in hand. “It would be easier if I hated you,” she’d laughed and he’d laughed too, because he likes to think he’s genial and nice and what the fuck else was he meant to say.

“I’m so proud of you,” Christian had said afterwards as they got ready for bed in the lavishly appointed hotel room. “You were amazing, you all were.” 

She’d been different onstage. It wasn’t just the newly dyed hair or the stage outfits or even her endearing but dorky dancing. It was an extension of moments he’d seen before, the casual touches and connected glances and attempts to make her friend laugh. He wasn’t even sure if she realised up there, in the moment, how obvious it all was, probably always had been. 

Geri’s phone had lit up and she’d wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her thin frame, laid down on the bed with her back to him. She smiled softly. “All good, sweetheart?”

“Mel is actually insane.” He’d waited for the invitation, to be shown whatever was making her laugh quietly to herself. It never came.

He could still see the glow of the screen, hear the writing of messages, as he’d fallen into a restless sleep.


End file.
